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Anti-Land Grab Regulations

Land grabs are closer than you think. Holes in international law mean we have very little way of ensuring that our supply chains and savings don’t link us to land that has been illegally or violently taken. Read more

This is largely due to a lack of regulation. While companies in Europe, the US and Australia caught importing illegal timber can be prosecuted, there are no international regulations on the trade of land or the products grown on it, such as coffee, sugarcane, rice, rubber or palm oil. This means there is no legal incentive for companies to ensure that agricultural products don’t originate from land that was forcibly taken from the people who live on it.

Global Witness has been documenting land grabbing crises in countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and Liberia, where governments strike secretive deals with agri-business companies for land at the expense of communities that have relied on it for generations. These communities are often unable to access justice domestically, but right now the only recourse they have internationally is to voluntary standards and industry round-tables that lack teeth.

As global demand for food and other agricultural commodities increases, commercial pressure on land will too. Global Witness is calling on Europe and the US to introduce binding regulations to ensure that companies and investors are punished for their role in land grabbing, not profiting from it.